Hey guys,
NOTE: So please bear with me this chapter (not like you guys aren't all incredible anyways)My computer decided to crash and so I practically lost everything...Including Word...so this is the first chapter I've just typed straight into here, so I hope it works out...I wasn't going to type up a chapter today, but this is my stress reliever, the highlight of my day (and I don't know how long it'll take to fix my computer) so I decided to try and stick to my 'regular' posting schedule.
Okay, so...THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH! Seriously, 220 reviews? 11 for last chapter alone! That's just amazing, you all had me jumping around my room silently squealing! You're all the ABSOLUTE BEST! WOW! Thank you for sticking with this story so far :) I L-O-V-E you all!
And welcome new readers (even though by the time you get to this chapter I don't really think I can call you new anymore...I noticed a few new faces in the reviews (yes I know who all my reviewers are) so that was a pleasant surprise :)Hi and THANK YOU so much!
As a whole, yeah, THANK YOU! (I feel like I keep saying that...)You're all REMARKABLY WONDROUS and SPECTACULARLY MARVELOUS!
[As always ;) ]
I don't own Lab Rats (even though I'm fairly certain you all would have worked that out a long, LONG, time ago).
WARNING: Get's more creepier, a tiny bit of violence etc, yeah -you've been warned. It's got a kidnapping in it, so obviously it's not going to be all happy.
Enjoy! (sorry it's short).
There came this little moment, barely lasting a second, but in that second he knew he had broken. Everyone faced with death comes across it at some stage, that fragment of a instant where they suddenly lose all of their hope, know of their defeat and give in. It was dark after that, dark and so very, very cold.
They'd been driving for a very long while, usually Chase would be able to tell you the exact time down to the second, but right now any amount of time he'd been in this car was far too long. Half of him wanted the car to stop, the other half was petrified on what their destination would be. Why had he gotten in the car. Stupid. Stupid. STUPID! How could be so thick? No matter, though, it was too late now.
Chase could hear his heartbeat thrum at a too fast pace inside his chest, feel the way his clammy fingers were shaking against his fidgeting knees. There was an unshakable lump that was slowly rising up his throat and, well, Chase wasn't quite sure if it was a sign of future sickness or something to tie together with the tears pricking at the corners of his eyes. And he could do nothing to stop it. He was just so powerless, and so very, very human. Chase supposed that, yes, he may have always been human, but with bionic abilities he had never formed the direct correlation between himself and the everyday, vulnerable people he walked passed every day -because he was supposed to be special, but obviously he wasn't.
"No, you've got this -use that brain of yours- that big beautiful mind you've been completely ignoring. You are Chase Davenport and you are not accepting death from some creep in a shoddy red car."
It sounded like something Spike would say, well, minus the obvious insults and not being slurred out with much less thought and empowering insults to work as backhanded compliments.
"Don't give in, not yet. He pushes you,you push back...He yells, you yell back...he thinks your some weak little school boy, an easy target, prove him wrong. What's the worst that could happen?"
Yes, he could do that.
"How do you feel about some company?" Came a sneer from the driver, by now he was done toying with Chase -at least for now- and had dropped the entire teenager act. Now he was just a malevolent, psychotic, evil man.
The youngest Davenport raised his chin, refusing to answer. He may have lost hope, but that didn't mean his dignity had dissipated as well -he'd fight 'til the very end if he had to, tooth and claw until his last breath. His mind was right, what was the worst that could happen?
"Answer me."
"Don't."
It is, after all, in our natural human survival instincts to not go down without leaving some mark, no matter how temporary. When held in a situation like this, to be so free and dignified, to hold such a stately level of decorum and silence, in the face of death -made his existence a very act of rebellion.
The man seized his face with one slender, yet surprisingly strong, hand. He squeezed, trying to prove to his captive who was in charge and what happened when he didn't get his way, but all Chase did was meet his steely gaze with an equally callous stare. The scratches on his face were worth it.
Donald was at a loss of what to do. He'd always imagined that he'd lose a child in a battle, an honorable fight where it just wasn't their lucky day. But not like this, never like this. He'd had no time to mentally prepare himself for this, no walls carefully constructed to block out the pain, and it was certainly excruciating, like his chest was slowly being opened and his heart was being mercilessly gauged out.
Mr Davenport had initially entertained the idea that it was his brother, coming back from the grave to seek a sort of perverse revenge for taking the experiments. But no, Douglas was dead. Donald just needed something, anything, to stop him from thinking about the truth -whatever it took to stop him seeing the depths of how truly evil the world was. From seeing some stranger target his little Chasey and take him away for God knows what.
"Donnie?" Even Eddy had some grasp on the severity of the situation, because he was yet to draw out some snide remark from his never ending arsenal of insults.
"Hmm?"
"I'm picking up something, it's faint, I can't triangulate it -but I can give you an approximate area- 5000km wide."
Five thousand? Bree could run that, she could find Chase.
"Bree?" Donald called out, a tone of urgency in his voice, to have his daughter bolt in panting and soaked from the rain she had been running around in for the past three hours. She looked so very tired, but more determined and focused than he'd ever seen her before.
"Any news?" She breathed, schooling her features to hide the hope bubbling behind her grave face.
"Bring up the map, Eddy."
The thing that killed him most was the uncertainty -the man driving him had done little to calm his piquing nerves, besides flip on the radio to some unheard of country radio station- and no matter what the situation, not knowing was something that always put Chase on edge.
The car finally slowed to a stop, Chase would have run out the door, but the locks were down and the window handle had been ripped off- the person who had played around with the inside of the car door had made it impossible to open from the inside. Clever.
"Don't move," Chase could feel the knife being held to his throat as the car door was flung open.
A little girl, innocent enough in her little pink dress, was standing there clutching the hand of a middle aged man.
"Daddy, can we keep it?" The little pigtailed child turned to her father, looking down at Chase with unrestrained curiosity.
"Now Darlin', you know the rules. Mother has to decide," his voice was oily, some might find it charming, but it all made Chase recoil slightly at the baritone tone, leaning away from the torch being held up to his face as the slightly sweaty man inspected him. Clutching his face and turning to it different angles, before looking for signs of injury, like Mr Davenport had done on numerous occasions. Except this was different, this was clinical and detached.
Chase wanted to argue, wanted to scream out that he wasn't some prize cattle to be inspected for sale, but his voice had been lost a long time ago, and he was afraid of what would happen if he found it.
"Well?" his chauffeur questioned, "Did I do good?"
"You're late, Mother is upset."
The younger man's voice changed, he lowered his head like a scolded child, "sorry Father."
The man nodded, before he seemed to consider his next answer, giving Chase one final look, "I suppose you did, not the best, but he'll do. Mother has the final say though, what do you think? Do you want to anger her with another potential failure at this time? Or take the chance?"
'Josh' seemed to shrink back in his seat, look across Chase, who still had his head pulled back by the middle aged man. He raised his knife, bit his lip, and looked back at Chase. Then it clicked, the young man before him was deciding whether or not he should slit his throat.
"Hmm...Better not risk it," Josh finally decided, causing the older man to tighten his grip on Chase's neck so he couldn't turn away.
"But Daddy," the little girl halted the two men, "don't I get a say?"
"Of course you do, Daughter-of-mine," he felt the man coo, and envisioned his greasy smile.
"Well, I like him. You thought the last boy was perfect and Mother ended up hating him, don't you think that..." she paused.
"Tell her your name."
"Chase, m-my names Chase," he spluttered, wheezing slightly due to his restricted airways by the way that oaf was clasping his head and neck.
"Very well then," it was almost eerily formal for such a small child, "Don't you think Chase deserves a chance to meet Mother, you did waste an awful lot of petrol on him."
Both men seemed to silently deliberate, Chase closed his eyes, waiting for the knife -but it didn't come- instead he felt the seemingly unhealthy middle aged man grab him with his meaty paws and heft him out of the car, carrying the stunned boy like a rag doll towards the blue Ute, which he was shoved into the backseat of.
There was a woman on the other side of the backseat, frail and with the air of once being very beautiful. Her blond hair hung lifelessly, her skin sagged and her eyes squinted across at the sudden figure shoved into the car beside her, disrupting her from her nap.
But instead of getting mad, like Chase expected, her eyes racked over him once, before she leant forward and cupped his cheek in her hand, smiling, "Conner?"
Chase's mind tried to work out whether it was a trick question or not, so he remained silent. He tilted his head slightly into her grip, listened to her slight intake of breath- he had pleased her. All the while he held his attempt at a loving face, like Mother was shooting him, his mind was racing with ways to escape.
"Oh, you will do lovely, my beautiful boy. Tell me, are you clever? Tell Mother how smart you are."
Chase bit his lip, wondering how to go about speaking, he chose to be safe and whispered back in a mimic of her slight southern twang, "Very. I'm top of my classes."
She closed her eyes, leaning her head back, "And your name, tell Mother your name."
He didn't think, "Cha-" he was slapped across the face before he could get any further. The force was stronger than he thought, his face swinging around to the opposite side and his eyes automatically watering under impact.
"No!" She screeched at him, her voice dropping until it sent a visible chill down Chase's spine. "Don't tell lies to your mother!"
"S-sorry," he took a deep breath, using the worlds smartest brain for what felt like the first time since the debate all that time ago, "Mother, my na-name is Conner, I'm s-sorry for...for the lie."
It was a gamble but, "I missed you."
Mother suddenly pulled Chase forward and crushed his head against her chest, wrapping her arms around his back and kissing the top of his head, "Oh, Baby, how Mother has missed you too. Father and I have been searching for you for the longest time."
"I've been looking for you both too," Chase murmured, in an attempt at both a physically and emotionally tired boy.
The woman squeezed back tightly, "Tired, Son-of-mine? Mother is here, you can sleep, Mother is here," she repeated that as if it were supposed to lull Chase into some sense of security and warmth.
He waited for her grip to loosen, for her hand to stop stroking his hair so intently, until it turned into an absentminded thought and she too showed the signs of falling tired. Except one of them was faking, but then again he hadn't gotten out that much truth the entire time he was locked in the car with this woman.
Suddenly the situation looked very promising indeed.
Donald could barely contain the hysteric laugh of utter relief when a shrill beeping rang out from the laptop before him, "Took him long enough."
Bree sung out with glee when a new message appeared behind her eyes, before putting in that extra burst of speed.
Adam almost fell off the couch when his message came in, where he had been reading up on...oh who was he kidding...he had been panicking about his brother and thinking about all of the things he could have done to prevent Chase being an idiot and getting into a car with a stranger.
Eddy cursed when the coordinates of the youngest Davenport finally came in, but internally he smiled.
Leo heard the ruckus and shared an elated hug with his mother, who was already crying tears of joy, "Mum, save the waterworks until after he's home."
Spike smiled crookedly, cracked his knuckles and raised his fists in preparation- he was looking forward to this.
Sorry, I know, you must all be thinking 'what! Where's the ending :O' but (even though you guys might not like this) since I have a sucky computer at the moment that kept lagging throughout that entire writing process...I decided that instead of pulling an all nighter to finish a questionably good chapter (especially around 4am, where I go slightly loopy) I would add another part to it [make it a three shot] yeah...)
Don't worry, it's nowhere near done (there's still more stuff to write out, like how Chase got back in contact with everyone, what happened? What were the repercussions? Family ending fluff etc.)
Sorry for any major errors (I know that there's generally always a small handful of grammatical or spelling errors in the other chapters, but this one probably has more [no matter how many times my early morning brain looks over it to proof read]).
Other than that, what did you think? What do you think about 'THE FAMILY'?
So, I was actually TOTALLY considering sticking Douglas in it, but then some of you brought up some very interesting points and I decided, 'why not play this completely left field (or whatever the expression is) and make this not about Donald, Douglas and inventions etc. but about Chase?' So I did.
Basically, as I'll probably explain next chapter and you can sort of pick up this chapter, there's this family (TOTAL CRAZIES) and they lost their son/brother, Conner. 'Mother' the mum, flipped out and so the family have been scowering around looking for a replacement son. Obviously they know it's not Conner, but Mother doesn't, and their aim is to please her. If Mother doesn't like the kid (or they agree not to show the kid to her in the first place)...well you can guess what happens...if Mother likes them...well you'll see...
Anyways, thank you all SO SO much for your lovely reviews...hopefully I can fix up my computer, finish off this story arc and move on to some really fluffy stuff for a while.
YOU'RE ALL LIKE RAINBOWS AND SUNSHINE AND LOLLYPOPS (unless you don't like lollypops, then you can insert something else nice)!
Catch ya tomorrow, bye!